Boris P. Stoicheff
| Boris P. Stoicheff | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 1, 1924 |
| Died | April 15, 2010 (aged 85) |
| Fields | Physics |
| Notable awards | Henry Marshall Tory Medal (1989) |
Boris P. Stoicheff (June 1, 1924[1] – April 15, 2010[2]) was a Macedonian Canadian [3] physicist.
Stoicheff was born in Bitola, in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia (now Macedonia). He emigrated with his family to Canada as a young child in 1931, and grew up in Toronto. He earned a degree in Engineering Physics from the University of Toronto in 1947, and a PhD from the same institution in 1950. He stayed for another year at Toronto on a fellowship, then went to the University of Ottawa to work as a postdoctoral researcher in a lab headed by Gerhard Herzberg, where he worked on Raman scattering.[1]
Stoicheff became well known for his Raman spectroscopy through the 1950s, publishing a number of previously unavailable high-resolution molecular spectra. In 1953 he was promoted to a permanent research position with assistants. In 1954 he married his wife Joan, and they had a son, Peter Stoicheff, in 1956 (he would go on to become a Professor of English). In the late 1950s, he became interested in Brillouin scattering, and attempted to build a laser, though Theodore Maiman succeeded in doing so first. Stoicheff nonetheless soon built the first laser in Canada, and researched using it for spectroscopy. He spent a sabbatical year in 1963 at MIT, working with Charles Townes and some of Townes's graduate students on the same subject, and in 1964 took a professorship at the University of Toronto.[1]
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1975 and served as president of the Optical Society of America in 1976 [4] and was awarded the Frederic Ives Medal in 1983. In the late 1970s he changed focus from Brillouin spectroscopy to Rydberg spectroscopy. He retired in 1989, though continued to perform research. By 2000, he was working on the origin of diffuse interstellar bands.[1]
Stoicheff died in Toronto on April 15, 2010.[2]
References
- 1 2 3 4 H.M. van Driel and A.D. May (2000). "Boris P. Stoicheff: A tribute on the occasion of his 75th birthday" (PDF). Canadian Journal of Physics 78 (5–6): xiii–xviii. Bibcode:2000CaJPh..78D..13.. doi:10.1139/cjp05-06tribute.
- 1 2 "OSA Mourns the Loss of Boris P. Stoicheff, OSA Past President". Optical Society of America. Retrieved 2010-08-24.
- ↑ Kasher, R. (1996). Passport's Guide to Ethnic Toronto: A Complete Guide to the Many Faces & Cultures of Toronto. Passport Books. ISBN 9780844289939. Retrieved 2015-08-30.
- ↑ "Past Presidents of the Optical Society of America". Optical Society of America.
External links
- Articles Published by early OSA Presidents Journal of the Optical Society of America
- Fascination with light led scientist to build and operate Canada's first laser Toronto Globe and Mail, 17 May 2010
- Obituary from Canadian Association of Physicists
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